Children everywhere have dreams and aspirations, and education is the key means for fulfilling them. Yet, unfortunately today, most kids need to complement public education with costly private lessons. This not only puts a big financial burden on their parents, it also increase the social gap. In this presentation we will discuss, how, all of us together can change this. We will see how by leveraging Open Education Resources (OER) and Open Source Software (OSS), we can realize the vision of democratizing education, by offering interactive & animated online lessons for all kids, for free.

1. Harnessing Open Educational Resources (OER) and
Open Source Software (OSS) to Democratize Education
Nava Levy, Founder LerGO – Educate Yourself
‫החינוך‬ ‫של‬ ‫לדמוקרטיזציה‬ ‫להביא‬ ‫כדי‬ ‫פתוח‬ ‫מקור‬ ‫קוד‬ ‫ותוכנת‬ ‫פתוחים‬ ‫לימודיים‬ ‫משאבים‬ ‫מינוף‬
‫לוי‬ ‫נאוה‬,‫לרגו‬ ‫מייסדת‬–‫בעצמך‬ ‫למד‬

4. Outline
• The context – the
significance of
democratizing education
• What are OER and what
role OSS play?
• Key challenges
• A bit about LerGO

5. What is your dream?

7. And yet, most kids need to complement
public education …

8. Public Education Private Lessons
+
…with costly private lessons

9. 0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Israel Korea India
Most Kids Taking Costly
Private Lessons
“Costs associated with shadow
education are staggering”
Source: Wikipedia, Private Tutoring
Source: Wikipedia, Meizav Israel

10. ‫פרטיים‬ ‫מורים‬
-‫ישראל‬
TheMarker‫אוקטובר‬2012
© 2013 Proprietary and Confidential
‫בנימין‬ ‫אתי‬,‫יו‬"‫הארצית‬ ‫ההורים‬ ‫הנהגת‬ ‫ר‬:,‫אוקט‬2012:‫כ‬-80%
‫במורים‬ ‫אחר‬ ‫או‬ ‫זה‬ ‫בשלב‬ ‫נעזרים‬ ‫התלמידים‬ ‫מכלל‬‫לבית‬ ‫מחוץ‬
‫הספר‬.20%‫זאת‬ ‫עושים‬ ‫לא‬ ‫הנותרים‬,‫הכלכלי‬ ‫מצבם‬ ‫בגלל‬ ‫רק‬,
‫הצלחתם‬ ‫בשל‬ ‫ולא‬‫בלימודים‬.

11. Social Gap
Increasing
Prof Reardon, Stanford, April 2013
“No Rich Kid Left Behind
….Whatever we’ve been doing in
our schools, it hasn’t reduced
educational inequality between
children from upper- and lower-
income families…
“….private tutoring
can…maintain and
exacerbate social
inequalities"
Source: Wikipedia

12. "‫נמוך‬ ‫כלכלי‬ ‫מרקע‬ ‫תלמידים‬ ‫בין‬ ‫הפערים‬ ‫כי‬ ‫מעלים‬ ‫החינוך‬ ‫משרד‬ ‫נתוני‬
‫עצומים‬ ‫הם‬ ‫גבוה‬ ‫כלכלי‬ ‫מרקע‬ ‫לתלמידים‬,‫השנים‬ ‫עם‬ ‫ומעמיקים‬ ‫הולכים‬ ‫ורק‬...
‫שווה‬ ‫פתיחה‬ ‫נקודת‬ ‫תלמידיה‬ ‫לכל‬ ‫מלספק‬ ‫רחוקה‬ ‫הציבורית‬ ‫החינוך‬ ‫מערכת‬,
‫חברתית‬ ‫לניידות‬ ‫סיכוי‬ ‫כל‬ ‫ידיה‬ ‫במו‬ ‫הורגת‬ ‫וכמעט‬".
(‫אמסטרדמסקי‬ ‫שאול‬,‫כלכליסט‬,‫אוקטובר‬,2012).
2013 Proprietary and Confidential
‫החברתי‬ ‫הפער‬
‫גדל‬-‫ישראל‬

13. Who will
Come to the
Rescue?
Technology? Government?
Business Sector? Community?

14. First, let’s
talk about
“how”
"You can create a
situation where education
is democratized. You can
set up a cloud that gathers
the best lectures in the
world, and you can send
them to every home...If
you want to connect to
this cloud million children,
it will cost you $50 million,
that's nothing.”
President of Israel,
Shimon Peres,
TheMarker

15. Technology is key for transformation
Technology
Ubiquity and Rapidly Dropping Prices:
Internet, Social, Mobile, Cloud, Big Data,
End User Devices
?

16. Technology
Government?
Business Sector?
Community?
+
Technology
+
Technology
+
Technology Infrastructure is key,
but what about the content?

17. Academic Education: Let’s talk
about MOOCs
Room for both models as there is a lot of $$ to go around
NGO, OSS, OER

18. Public Education: What about
Kids Education?
Difficult to show direct ROI,
leading to market failure
NGO, OER,OSS
CrowdSourcing
Need to come up with non-profit models
- As there isn’t enough $ to go around
- Trust, Values & Ethics matter even
more when it comes to kids education

19. The Emergence of Open
Educational Resources (OER)
Definition: “Open Educational Resources are
digital learning resources offered online …
freely and openly to teachers, educators,
students, and independent learners in order
to be used, shared, combined, adapted, and
expanded in teaching, learning and research.”
(Source: OECD)

20. Examples for OER Initiatives
All were initiated by non-profit ventures and all,
except edX, are Crowd Sourced based platforms

21. What about Open Source Software?
It’s not just the content that is Open &
Free in OER - it’s also the software!
OER Definition (cont.): “…They
include learning content, software
tools to develop, use and distribute,
and implementation resources such
as open licenses.”
(Source: OECD)

22. There are also Independent OSS Initiatives Helping
Democratize Education - Key Examples for eLearning
Audio Recording
Screen Recording
Virtual learning environment
Animation

23. In fact, OSS & OER have…
• Similar philosophy
• Similar motivations
• Similar values
• Many combined initiatives

25. Open Educational Resources –
Drivers & Inhibitors
Drivers or “Why?”
1. Do Good, altruistic
motivations
2. Credit/reputation/
“egoboo”
3. Commercial benefits
Inhibitors for adoption
1. Usability for kids:
Animation & Interactivity
2. Finding the right lesson
at the right quality
3. Language & culture
barriers

26. Overcoming OER Inhibitors
- Usability: Adding Animation

27. Creating a Lesson Playlist
Adding Online Quiz
Overcoming OER Inhibitors
- Usability: Adding Interactivity
1
2
3
4
Link to animated intro
Link YouTube/SlideShare
Link to quiz
Link to animated ending

28. Overcoming OER Inhibitors- Orchestration
for finding the right lesson at the right quality
As with any disruptive innovation, over time content &
platform will improve: also through the wisdom of the
crowd and the goodwill of the community

29. Overcoming OER Inhibitors – Creating a
multi lingual & cultural platform from day one

30. And this is the vision of LerGO... To provide all kids free access to animated & interactive
online lessons, enabled by the community through LerGO’s open source cloud platform.

31. About LerGO
www.lergo.org
•LerGO is a new non-profit social venture dedicated
to self education
•Our goal is to provide every child with free access to
high quality, interactive and animated online lessons
•This will be made possible via LerGO's open source
cloud platform that will harness the goodwill of the
community, enabling it to easily create educational
content
•LerGO is led by Nava Levy with the help of talented
volunteers who are experts in technology, education
and design. Interested in joining us and making a
difference?
We are looking for 'early' content creators, web
developers & UX experts, as well as funds to
accelerate platform development.
With your help, we can make it happen! If you wish
to help or receive updates, please contact us at
info@lergo.org.

32. Democratize Kids Education
through Self Education

33. Thank You 
© 2013 Proprietary and Confidential
www.facebook.com/LerGO.org
nava@LerGO.org
www.LerGO.org